1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a waste liquid collector which is detachably mounted on a device which includes a discharge unit discharging a waste liquid and is capable of storing the waste liquid discharged from the discharge unit when being mounted on the device.
2. Related Art
In the past, as a liquid ejecting device which ejects a liquid to a target from nozzle openings formed in a liquid ejecting head, an ink jet printer (hereinafter, simply referred to as “a printer”), for example, was well known. In this printer, a so-called cleaning process of forcedly sucking thickened ink within a print head (liquid ejecting head) as waste ink (waste liquid) is performed in order to prevent the nozzle openings from clogging due to the thickened ink (liquid) and discharge bubbles and dust mixed in the ink within the print head.
The waste ink forcedly sucked from the print head by the cleaning process is discharged to a waste ink tank (waste liquid collector) disposed at a predetermined location inside the printer through a flexible tube functioning as a liquid passage and is absorbed by a waste ink absorbing member (waste liquid absorbing member) received in the waste ink tank. Here, an absorption capability of the waste ink absorbing member is limited. Therefore, when the absorption capability reaches the limit, an absorption efficiency of the waste ink may decrease. In order to solve this problem, recently, a waste ink tank which can be detachably mounted on the printer has been suggested, as disclosed in JP-A-2007-130998, for example.
That is, the waste ink tank which has a box-like shape having a bottom portion and an open top portion so that an ink solvent of the waste ink absorbed by the waste ink absorbing member volatilizes is detachably mounted inside the printer disclosed in JP-A-2007-130998. The waste ink forcedly sucked from the print head is discharged from a downstream end (hereinafter, also referred to as “a discharge unit”) of the tube extending and facing downward from a sucking pump to the inside of the waste ink tank. Then, the waste ink discharged to the waste ink tank is absorbed by the waste ink absorbing member. When the absorption capability of the waste ink absorbing member reaches the limit, the waste ink tank is detached from the printer and replaced with a new waste ink tank.
As the waste ink tank which is detachably mounted, there is known a waste ink tank in which an opening through which a discharge unit discharging waste ink in a printer is inserted or extracted is formed on a side wall and which is mounted on or detached from the printer by moving the discharge unit into the opening in insertion and extraction directions. In general, in the waste ink tank which is detachably mounted, a connection terminal (collector-side connection terminal) of a circuit board is provided on a part of the external side surface. When the waste ink tank is mounted on the printer, the collector-side connection terminal comes in contact with a connection terminal (device-side connection terminal) of the printer. In addition, when contact surfaces of the connection terminals appropriately come in contact with each other, various kinds of information (information on a use start date of the waste ink tank, the number of times of cleaning, an integration value of a discharge amount of waste ink, and the like) on the waste ink are exchanged between the circuit board of the waste ink tank and a control unit of the printer.
However, in some cases, the waste ink tank is moved toward the mount location of the printer while being rotated about the axis of the discharge unit inserted into the opening, when the waste ink tank is mounted on the printer. In this case, the contact surfaces of both the connection terminals may be deviated from each other in a rotation direction of the waste ink tank, thereby causing a contact failure. Moreover, when the contact surfaces of both the connection terminals may be deviated from each other in the rotation direction of the waste ink tank during the rotation and the contact surfaces come in contact with other, the contact surfaces of both the connection terminals may be damaged. Accordingly, even though the contact surfaces of both the connection terminals again come in contact with each other later, the contact failure may be caused.